reading and writing about why we work

Office Space

09/20/2014

Few films in recent decades have so successfully spoken to the day-to-day realities of work as 1999's Office Space. Written and directed by Mike Judge, the film is extraordinarily witty and remarkably popular. The movie portrays the typical office workplace with diminutive cubicles and a very monotonous atmosphere, knowingly hovering around the life of Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston). Peter is a computer programmer working for Initech suffering from the indignities and humilities of his repititious workplace and soulless boss. The scene that caught my attention about Peters reason for ditching his job was the bar scene with Michael Bolton (David Herman). He speils about how we have limited time in this world; about how it is not in a humans nature to be " [sitting] in little cubicles and staring at computer screens all day" leaving most of us unsatisfied. In this case I can compare Peters views to Marcus Aurelius about our reason for working. In Marcus Aurelius work of Meditations, he argues about why he is "dissatisfied if [he is] going to do the things for which [he] exist", therefore, executing "the work of a human being". Although Aurelius believes it is in ones nature to work and Peter contradicts that, they both seemingly find a work life very unfullfilling and depressing. They both feel that there has to be more in life than droning away in conformity. Maybe our reason for life is to "lie in the bed-clothes and keep [one's self] warm" and that is exactly what Peter does for a scene, he lays in bed instead of going to work. To recapture all of this, why are jobs often so dissatisfying? Should one work if it makes us unhappy? In the end, we all know work is universal in life and society but were we really meant to spend life in labor? Peter surely questioned it, why can't we?